Thinking most your friends/acquaintances don't like you?

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So very often, this idea floats in my head. Aside from a few close friends (all of which live about 100 miles away), I really don't trust anyone else. My friends and acquaintances, I don't think they really do like me all that much. I've convinced myself they either just put up with me, show pity, let me hang around to get some personal benefit, something. This is how I think a lot of the time, and I really do hate it. But I still feel uneasy about a lot of people I'm around. And I have no real basis for any of this, it's all just paranoid thoughts and negativity towards myself, that I can never be accepted by anyone except for fellow castaways, rejects, or people familiar with Asperger's.

Anyone else in the same boat?

Absolutely. I really, really hate to bother people or to get in the way, so this belief (which I consider to be entirely justified) sees me often distance myself from people or groups who I think don't like me. I have on several occasions had my suspicions confirmed directly when someone was good enough to speak to me about it.

One thing I know is that what humans say is largely irrelevant in determining what they're thinking, so I always ignore further encouragement for me to join them and hang out, believing it to be BS which other humans probably need to hear, but I myself don't. I sometimes tell them straight, like "You don't actually have to invite me to stuff if you don't want me there, I won't mind!"

But that only makes them insist even harder that I join in.

If people are inviting you they probably mean they do want you there. It's too annoying for them to bring you along if they don't like you. You are overestimating peoples compassion. A compassionate person might compliment you or spend a few minutes with you. They wouldn't go to the extra trouble of bringing you with them. They're not that compassionate. The first thing people do when they don't like you is stop inviting you. But if you reject their invitation they will think you don't like them.

But like say there's three people with me at something. They plan on doing something else, and then I get tacked along simply because they were talking about it and have to invite me out of obligation to not be rude?


I dunno, maybe I'm just paranoid.